美国《科学》杂志19日公布了其评选的2019年十大科学突破，同时还公布了选出的年度崩溃事件。其中，应对气候变化行动的迟缓入选年度崩溃事件。

美民众承认政治失策而面临气候威胁

民意调查显示，越来越多的美国人认为政府和工业界应采取措施解决气候变化问题。但舆论的这种转变并未导致国家采取行动。

实际上，特朗普政府今年撤回了几项关键的遏制气候变化的法规。然而澳大利亚和北美发生了前所未有的野火，太平洋地区发生了珊瑚白化，欧洲发生了极端高温。

现在将近80％的美国人认同人类活动正在助长全球变暖，近40％的人称气候变化为“危机”。然而特朗普政府已经制定了一系列政策，包括退出巴黎气候公约以及降低对发电厂和汽车的排放限值，专家们认为这将使美国和世界更加难以遏制温室气体。

澳大利亚和巴西等国家也减轻了应对气候变化的努力，加上全球对矿物燃料的持续需求，使人们为实现达成巴黎协定温室气体减排目标的努力蒙上了阴影。

尽管风能和太阳能等可再生能源急剧增长，但如果当前的能源趋势继续下去，全球温室气体的排放量将继续上升。

Science原文：

An eleventh hour climate awakening?

Advocates for stronger U.S. action on climate change took heart this year from signs that public opinion is swinging their way. Numerous polls showed a rising proportion of Americans believes climate change is real, humans are contributing, and government and industry should take steps to address it. But that shift in public opinion has not resulted in political action at the national level—in fact, the Trump administration pulled back several key climate change regulations this year. And with unprecedented wildfires in Australia and North America, coral bleaching in the Pacific Ocean, and a deadly heat wave in Europe making the cost of warming unmistakable, governments’ failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions ignited protests around the world.

A survey by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that almost 80% of Americans now agree that human activity is fueling global warming, and close to 40% call climate change a “crisis,” almost double the number willing to use that term 5 years ago. A Pew Research Center survey found a similar shift: Fifty-seven percent of Americans now consider climate change a “major threat” to the United States, up from about 40% in 2013. But surveys also reveal deep divides by age, geography, and political affiliation, with older people, those living in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions, and those who identify as conservative less likely than other groups to see climate change as a serious threat requiring action.

Local governments in the United States are responding to public concerns. Although most Democratic politicians have long backed government action on climate change, most Republicans have not. But this year, many Republican officials publicly changed their tune. Florida’s Republican governor created a position for a science adviser to help figure out how the state should deal with rising seas and other climate-related challenges. The U.S. Congress, too, saw a glimmer of cross-party cooperation, with lawmakers in both the Senate and the House of Representatives establishing bipartisan caucuses to discuss climate.

Yet the Trump administration has forged ahead with a range of policies, including withdrawing from the Paris climate pact and rolling back emission limits on power plants and automobiles, that experts say will make it more difficult for the United States and the world to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.

Overseas, like-minded governments in Australia and Brazil also backed away from efforts to address climate change. And this month at a meeting in Madrid, nations that have signed the Paris pact continued to disagree on how exactly to achieve even the relatively modest commitments they have made, let alone strive for the deeper emissions cuts needed to head off dangerous climate change.

Such political developments, together with the world’s continuing appetite for fossil fuels, have cast a pall over efforts to curb warming. Despite the dramatic growth of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, global emissions of greenhouse gases will keep rising if current energy trends continue, the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris concluded last month. To make real progress, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said, “We will need to see great political will around the world.”

— David Malakoff

References

C. Funk and M. Hefferon, U.S. Public Views on Climate and Energy, Pew Research Center, 25 November 2019

B. Dennis et al., Americans increasingly see climate change as a crisis, poll shows, The Washington Post, 13 September 2019

B. Kennedy and M. Hefferson, U.S. concern about climate change is rising, but mainly among Democrats, 28 November 2019

Science原文链接：https://vis.sciencemag.org/breakthrough2019/finalists/#eleventh